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Etrog Jam

An etrog is a very interesting fruit. You never really hear of it except for during Sukkot, and even then nobody eats it; we just shake it. It doesn’t help that they’re really expensive, and not that easy to eat.

This was my first experience cutting into an etrog. It’s a citrus fruit similar to a lemon, but you can’t squeeze the juices out. I guess you can use the outside like you would lemon zest, but it would be much harder, since the surface isn’t very smooth.

Jewish superstition connects etrog jelly to pregnancy and fertility. I have heard that it eases labor pains, helps a woman get pregnant, and can be eaten any time during pregnancy for health and luck.

There are so many seeds in an etrog!

Anyway, I remember making etrog jelly with my 2nd grade teacher, Aaliyah. Upon googling etrog recipes, this seemed to be the most popular way to use an etrog after the holiday. I read a bunch of these recipes, combined them with my knowledge from my previous jam experiments (raspberry and fig-strawberry), and came up with this:

Ingredients:

1 etrog

1 cup of sugar

1 tablespoon orange marmalade

To prepare for your cooking-with-etrog adventure, soak your etrog in water for a week changing the water ocassionally.

After the week is up, chop the etrog, and remove the seeds. Discard the ends (and the pitom, gasp!), but keep the peel! Then grind it in a food processor.

Simmer the etrog pieces in water for about 30 minutes and strain.

Put the fruit back into the pot and heat on high. Stir in orange marmalade. Add the sugar, 1/3 cup at a time, mixing until it is incorporated. When all of the sugar is added, continuously stir the mixture until it boils and you can’t stir it away.

Place the mixture into a jar (I used a cleaned-out applesauce jar), seal, and let sit and set in a cool, dark place.

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I wish I could make jam out of the 18 or so etrogim I bought cheap, after the chag. But I’ve been reading about the extra-heavy pesticide coating they have, some of which will have penetrated into the flesh, so I refrained. Etrogim are considered a non-food crop so the farmers are permitted to spray them with high levels of pesticides. Altogether a delicate, labor-intensive crop.

jess

wow, i had no idea. thanks for the tip!

adele

I was wondering why you had an etrog swimming on your counter….

jess

for jelly! (you could’ve asked)

Thambu

Good tips for using citron . requesting for more spice recipe. thank u sir.

http://kosherdiningmaven.blogspot.com/ Nadine

I might try this. I thought you needed at least a dozen to make it worthwhile. I have two (my husband’s and my son’s) still in the frig.